


Elude

by Stairre



Series: Resonance [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Are y'all ready for some Tenderness?, Desertion, Don't copy to another site, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Hate Crimes, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Implied/Referenced War Crimes, Just got to cover all the bases guys, M/M, There are no good guys in war, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:54:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25628545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stairre/pseuds/Stairre
Summary: Deadlock and Hot Rod take on the first few days of their new life.---In which our intrepid pair set off in search of greener pastures (and the first thing on the list is a new ship), Hot Rod spends literally 2/3 of the fic injured and annoyed about it, and the author only belatedly realised that the There's Only One Bed trope is present but unfortunately not utilised due to the extenuating in-fic circumstances.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Hot Rod
Series: Resonance [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1843339
Comments: 40
Kudos: 112





	1. Part I

**Resonance  
**   
  


**Elude  
**   
  


**Part I  
**   
  


–  
  
  


“The first thing we gotta do,” Deadlock tells Hot Rod as he settles him into the co-pilot chair in the small ship’s cockpit, careful of the brace on Hot Rod’s knee, “is get rid of the ship.” He lingers for a moment, arms still wrapped around Hot Rod, before he slowly draws back, standing in front of his seated mate.  
  


Hot Rod onlines his vocaliser again from where he’d muted it to prevent groaning in pain. The medical supplies on the tiny ship Deadlock had stolen – and it really was _tiny_ , a little dart of a ship meant for a crew of three _maximum_ , designed for stealth and speed, mostly in use by each armies’ spec ops divisions – were thin on the ground. No sensor-net dampener chips had been left inside, patches were few and of low-quality, and the welder spat sparks intermittently.  
  


According to Deadlock, they’d been lucky to get away with that much.  
  


So, Hot Rod’s in pain at the moment. His right knee joint is only half-repaired, with a few wrecked gears still missing due to a lack of replacements, and the whole thing is in a make-shift brace to stop him moving the joint because – surprise, surprise – they don’t have any disabling chips either, to lock Hot Rod out of being able to move the limb.  


“I hear you,” Hot Rod gets out, strained, twitching his spoiler wings to get them situated more comfortably in the seat. “But this thing is kinda recognisable as a ‘Con ship, if anyone with even the slightest idea of what they were looking at got a glimpse. An’ the make is Cybertronian so even if you painted it bright orange, it’d still be traceable.”  
  


Deadlock laughs lightly under his breath. “Bright orange?” he says. “Who in their right mind would paint a ship _that_ colour?”  
  


Hot Rod waves him off. “No one, I hope,” he says. “But, for serious, what’s your game plan? ‘Cause I hate to say it, but – I’m dead weight at the moment. If you propped me up, I could shoot a gun out a window, but I ain’t gonna be going anywhere fast.”  
  


Deadlock frowns again at that, optics glancing towards Hot Rod’s wounds, the same way they’ve done every time he’s caught sight of them so far. They’re not even _that bad_ , they’re just inconvenient. Hot Rod’s already tried to reassure his spark-mate by telling him that he’s had worse, but, uh. It hadn’t been a reassured look that had stretched across Deadlock’s faceplates, let’s put it that way, so Hot Rod stays quiet this time.  
  


“I was thinking last night,” Deadlock says quietly, “about all the resources available to me – to _us_. And – how strong is your moral compass regarding mercenaries?”  
  


Hot Rod squints at him, but – he _is_ Deadlock, Megatron’s deadliest gunslinger. And he mentioned in passing earlier that he’d been a mercenary after getting out of the Dead End. “Not that strong, actually,” Hot Rod admits. “I was part of Nyon’s underground resistance for centuries before the war. We tried our best, but – some of that work was dirty. And, then, y’know. Wrecker. I’d probably have a problem if you assassinated some rights activist to help uphold a corrupt regime, but if you’re gonna go out there an’ kill slag-suckers then I ain’t that bothered. Make of that what you will.”  
  


Deadlock curls a hand over Hot Rod’s, light and careful. “What I make of it is that you’re my fierce spark-mate who decided to _do something_ well before I did,” he says, something like pride in his voice. Hot Rod’s faceplates flush. “I never forgot, you know,” Deadlock goes on, “that you had the care and the bravery to stand up against the Functionists long before Megatron properly came onto the scene.”  
  


Hot Rod gives him a wry smile. “No wonder you expected to find me amongst the Decepticon ranks,” he comments.  
  


“I did,” Deadlock acknowledges, “but then you never appeared. I – cannot deny my own curiosity as to how you ended up an _Autobot,_ though.”  
  


“Now that one’s Megatron’s fault,” Hot Rod says, carefully, because Deadlock is well-known as one of the Original Decepticons, and chances are he knows Megatron _personally._ “In the aftermath of – of Nyon, I ended up being brought to meet him. And. Primus, even then. Power was going to his head, and – I _mourned_ , y’know? For that loss. We all thought he would lift us up, set us free, but all I could see was another tyrant in the making. I didn’t join the Autobots ‘cause I was pro-Autobot. I joined ‘em ‘cause I was anti-Megatron.”  
  


“… I suppose that makes sense,” Deadlock replies, shuttering his optics. “I – Megatron is – _was_ – my friend. He taught me how to read. He helped me get off boosters and syk. I – I could see him. Losing himself. But I didn’t want to see it, and – I don’t know. If I said something, would anything be different? Or would I just be dead?”  
  


“I think that if you think your friend might have killed you for speaking out against him, then the two of you placed different value on your relationship,” Hot Rod says, frankly, a little helplessly, wanting to soften the words but not knowing how.  
  


Deadlock lifts his hand from Hot Rod’s and up to his face, and only when he draws it away again can Hot Rod see that he wiped away spilt optical fluid. “It _did_ mean a lot. To him, I mean. I just don’t know if it meant _enough_. I placed my trust in him, and. Here’s where we are now.”  
  


Hot Rod leans forward and grips Deadlock’s hand again, suddenly afraid to lose his spark-mate to a world of _what-ifs_. “Your trust was not misplaced,” he says quietly, firmly. “It was only – mishandled.”  
  


Deadlock stares down at Hot Rod’s fingers gripping his, bright gold on his dark grey, small enough that Deadlock could enclose them entirely in his fist. “I should have been a better friend,” he says. “I should have – tried, at least. Not closed my optics.”  
  


“Oh, sweet-spark,” Hot Rod chuckles out with no humour at all, Deadlock twitching in place at the sudden endearment. “There ain’t a mech left alive that hasn’t chosen selective blindness at some point by now.” He looks up at his spark-mate. “You regret. I regret. But – please. I swear I’ll comfort you every step of the way, but I wanna start looking forward, now. Not back. I ain’t sayin’ it’s gonna be easy, but I want my _future_ , and I want you to be in it.”  
  


Deadlock stares at him for a moment. Hot Rod meets his optics with no hesitation, because, frag, he’s not said anything _wrong._ They’re still mostly strangers to each other, despite the fact that their sparks have been linked for so many millions of years. Yeah, there’s going to have to be some backwards and forwards, some negotiation and boundary-setting as they settle into what they want to make of their relationship, but none of that’s going to be able to happen if their heads are stuck in the past they’re trying to leave behind, unable to start building their joined future.  
  


Deadlock nods, finally, raising Hot Rod’s hand up to kiss it, slotting their fingers together. “Yes,” he says, “you’re right. I want that future. The past is what made me, made _us_ , but if I linger there, I will lose more than I have already lost. And – I cannot bear to lose you.”  
  


Hot Rod shutters his own optics. _I cannot bear to lose you._ He leans forward, resting his helm on Deadlock’s front, feeling the slight vibrations of his frame, hearing the soft sounds of his internals, their EM fields meshing together, pulsing _sadness-understanding-tentative-hope._ “Walk beside me from here on out,” he whispers, “and – don’t go where I can’t follow.”   
  


Deadlock places his other hand on the back of Hot Rod’s neck, cupping his palm against the cables and joints. His claws are so near to major energon lines, he could fatally wound Hot Rod if he but slipped his digits a little inward.   
  


Somehow, Hot Rod’s never felt safer.  
  
  


–  
  
  


Hot Rod runs light fingers over his Autobot symbol as he stares into the lightly-cracked reflective surface in the ship’s tiny wash-rack, seated on a battered folding chair Deadlock managed to find in one of the storage lockers.  
  


He can’t run solvent directly onto himself yet; the brace caging the blown-open right knee isn’t exactly sealing the gap, and while his internals aren’t going to rust from Cybertronian-safe solvent, pouring it directly into them is still a far cry from being a good idea. Hence, the chair. And Deadlock, helping him into it.  
  


Hot Rod had drawn the line at Deadlock helping him clean himself; he’s not _that_ badly injured, he just has to be careful and slow. His spark-mate, at least, had not hesitated to respect his wishes. Hot Rod still quietly marvels a bit at that; his small stature compared to many of his former compatriots tended to have them assuming that they could move him around bodily sometimes, and he would be okay with that. That they could lift him up without asking, or laugh when he had to stretch for things on high shelves, or treat him like he was fragile and incapable when he got stuck on a berth in the med-bay.  
  


It hadn’t come from a place of meanness, Hot Rod recognises that. It was mostly a hold-over from that pre-war _aw, look at the cute little mecha getting by in a world too big for them_ attitude. Condescending, Hot Rod’s always found it, though they were not intentionally cruel. It still smarted, though.   
  


So for Deadlock to immediately take him at his word, to not question his ability to decide for himself, to not treat Hot Rod like his own autonomy and view-point was an after-thought in the mind of someone bigger and stronger? That meant _a lot.  
  
_

And mecha wondered why minibots were so slagged off all the time.  
  


Hot Rod slowly picks at his sigil. He has to get rid of it, he knows. He’s no longer an Autobot. The thought of doing so, after so long of wearing it… it’s been on his chest longer than it has been absent. Hot Rod will look almost like a stranger if he takes it off.  
  


He clenches his denta together. He’ll need a higher grade dissolving agent than any they have on the ship right now, so it’s moot point anyway. Getting rid of his brand – and Primus, that’s what they call it, don’t they? The _Auto-brand_. Frag it, you don’t brand _people_ , branding is for _animals_ , to show _who they belong to_ – is a problem for future-Hot Rod.   
  


Instead, Hot Rod soaks a sponge and begins to wipe himself down, using thin brushes to get between his armour plates and work out the dirt and grit, cleansing himself of the filth of the battlefield that Autobot Wrecker Hot Rod had died on. He watches as the dirty solvent runs down the drain with every squeeze of the sponge, the way that dried energon made wet again is a darker pink than fresh.  
  


A knock comes at the door before Deadlock’s voice echoes through, “Everything all right in there?” He doesn’t come in, giving Hot Rod privacy, even though this is technically a communal wash-rack and the door doesn’t actually have a lock on it.  
  


“Fine,” Hot Rod says back, unsure if he’s lying or not. It occurs to him that Deadlock was probably feeling some odd twist of emotions down the bond. “Sorry, I was just – thinking. Didn’t mean to bother you.”  
  


“You didn’t,” Deadlock says, “you’re never a bother. Do you… want to talk, or just be left alone?”  
  


Hot Rod actually thinks about it a moment, rather than just blows Deadlock off, the way he usually would whenever someone insinuated that the smallest Wrecker might maybe need a bit of softness to help him on his way. “I – you can come in,” he settles on.  
  


Deadlock slides open the door – it squeaks horrendously, but there’s no oil on board to fix that, they’ve already looked – and steps in. A little heat escapes, but not much, as Hot Rod didn’t bother heating up the solvent any more than lukewarm. They’ve not got the power to waste on such a decadence, and the heater’s got an ominous rattle to it anyway. “Hot Rod?”  
  


Hot Rod shifts the sponge from one hand to the other and says, “Can you get my spoiler?” instead of anything potentially vulnerable. As though even asking that is not a different kind of vulnerability.  
  


Deadlock shuts the door behind him with another scraping squeak, and comes to kneel beside Hot Rod’s chair. It’s funny, really. Not even two days ago, Hot Rod’s combat programs would have been _shrieking_ at the idea of being in a confined space with a mech who wears the Decepticon symbol so prominently on his chest. Now, they’re silent, spark-mate protocols over-riding everything, refiling Deadlock from _enemy_ to _friend_ every time the sight of that symbol starts up the battle programs again.  
  


Deadlock holds his hand out, palm up, and it takes Hot Rod a moment to realise he’s waiting for Hot Rod to hand him the wet sponge. Hot Rod does, belatedly, something complicated twisting in his spark at how Deadlock didn’t just _take it_. It’s a fragging _sponge_ , Hot Rod should not be so weirdly thankful of it not just being snatched out of his hands.   
  


Hot Rod leans forward in the chair as Deadlock holds the sponge underneath the dribbling spray next to them, squeezing out the excess, and then gently placing it on the centre ridge where his spoiler wings meet on his back. Hot Rod shivers. It’s not a place he can reach himself, and he’s always reluctant to ask someone else. They nearly always take it as a come-on, even when Hot Rod just wants to be clean, damn it.  
  


“Is there anywhere I should avoid?” Deadlock asks quietly. “I don’t have a spoiler myself, so. I only know the hearsay, but I know that rumour and fact are very different.”  
  


Hot Rod shutters his optics, takes a moment to fill his spark with thankful appreciation because he’s never been asked that before, never. “I think they’re kinda like your helm finials,” he ends up saying. “Sensitive, but not necessarily sexual. I got a lot of sensors in ‘em, an’ tugging hard will hurt, but unless I’ve got my interface programs running, I’m not gonna get aroused. Just go gentle an’ I’ll be fine.”  
  


Deadlock nods, and wipes the sponge up the length of the right spoiler wing. Hot Rod nearly groans at how good it feels. It’s not arousing, but it _does_ feel nice. Like scratching a cyber-cat behind the ears. Deadlock curls the sponge around the tip, then drags it down the bottom edge back towards the middle, and Hot Rod’s engine _purrs.  
  
_

They both freeze.  
  


“Um,” says Hot Rod, his faceplates heating up. Embarrassment nearly makes him squirm in his seat, before he stills and instead plasters on a confident smirk, age-old entertainer protocols covering for the slip in his façade.   
  


Too late, he remembers that Deadlock’s inside his spark, and thus cannot be fooled with such a mask.  
  


Deadlock moves his hand away. Hot Rod’s spark lurches at the sudden perceived rejection – _no! don’t go!_ – and Deadlock stills, hand hovering in the air, Hot Rod’s spoiler wing sensors pinging back its proximity.   
  


“Hot Rod?” Deadlock asks, soft, too soft, how could any Decepticon be so soft? What did Hot Rod do to deserve such a caring mate? No, wait, nothing, because he _doesn’t_ , he doesn’t deserve this intimate, gentle regard.   
  


“Don’t stop,” Hot Rod forces out, low, almost a whisper as his vocaliser tries to fail on him. “Don’t – please.” He cannot look at Deadlock. The old grin has fallen from his face, and he has no idea what expression is sitting in its place, so he doesn’t give his mate the chance to see, turning his head away to stare at the grimy tiled wall.   
  


His spoiler wings quiver in place with repressed emotion, though what emotion Hot Rod couldn’t say. It’s – he doesn’t know. How long has it been since anyone touched his wings and he _wanted_ them there? Since they treated them, and him, with thoughtful respect, rather than grabbed at them clumsily like the appendages were a secondary part of Hot Rod’s interface array, open to touch how they liked?  
  


Deadlock carefully rests the sponge upon the spoiler wings again, glancing at Hot Rod’s face – Hot Rod can see him in his peripherals – periodically, as though checking in to see if his resumed washing is okay. It _is_ okay, it’s more than okay. Deadlock is careful in his swipes up and down, the sensors practically crooning under his touch, Hot Rod’s EM field trying to expand and mesh with Deadlock’s, which must be tingling his fingers, but Deadlock doesn’t hesitate at all.  
  


Finally, Hot Rod cannot keep his engine quiet any longer – indeed, it has been stuttering since Deadlock resumed and Hot Rod tried to subdue his instinctual reaction – and it rumbles out a purr again. This time, Deadlock slows, but doesn’t stop, optics trying to catch Hot Rod’s to judge whether that’s a good noise or not. Hot Rod looks steadily at the wall and bites his lip to keep the purr from emanating from his vocaliser, too.  
  


This is – this is vulnerability, tried and true. If Deadlock took it into mind to crush and rip his spoiler wings, Hot Rod would essentially lose a good half of his sensor-suite. It would be a _crippling_ injury, utterly debilitating in their war-torn world. And he just handed Deadlock access, like throwing a gauntlet down. _Can I trust you with this?  
  
_

Deadlock’s helm finials twitch as his optics narrow in concentration. Hot Rod watches him, torn halfway between anxiousness and comfort, his logic unit arguing with his spark-mate protocols, which are arguably purring as much as his engine his. _My mate. Looking after me.  
  
_

Then Deadlock’s digits slip just under the jointure of where the spoiler wings meet and attach to his back, and that’s it, Hot Rod’s _gone_. His whole frame loosens, tense gears relaxing, pistons depressurising, EM field breaking free of the tight control Hot Rod tried to keep on it and expanding out with contented pleasure. His engine’s never purred louder, it’s actually vibrating his frame a little, causing the battered chair to rock against the floor.  
  


Deadlock quickly catches him as Hot Rod essentially turns into a floppy mess in his arms, nearly teetering straight off the chair as his frame’s natural base-coding instincts let their delight at such a long-neglected need finally being addressed known.  
  


There’s the edge of a smile lingering around Deadlock’s lips, as Hot Rod finally looks at him again, optics half-hazy and bright, but – it doesn’t feel mocking. It doesn’t feel like Deadlock’s silently laughing at him, like _look at this lil’ racer, look how he **needs** to be touched, oh, I’ll touch you, pretty thing, c’mere…_ It doesn’t feel like that at all.  
  


Deadlock presses a kiss to Hot Rod’s helm, holding him gently against his front, cradling him like he’s something precious, before gently tilting him back into the chair again. Hot Rod flushes, but cannot look away this time. Deadlock’s red optics are too arresting once he’s caught Hot Rod’s in them.   
  


“You okay?” Deadlock murmurs, stroking his hand down Hot Rod’s arm, lingering, momentarily, on the bright white-gold print he left behind on that battlefield so far away, when he’d lurched forward to catch his falling spark-mate, horror racing through him at the thought that he might have been the cause of his mate’s death, the relief he’d felt when he’d found that the tiny Autobot had just been knocked straight into stasis-lock, and not straight into death.  
  


Hot Rod tries to answer. What comes out is a crooning purr. He slams his mouth shut again as Deadlock’s optics brighten, the inner lenses cycling wider, like he’s just seen something that he likes, his helm finials twitching forward and fanning out, like he’s trying to position them to gather as much data as he can.  
  


“Sh-shut up,” Hot Rod gets out somehow, through his uncooperative vocaliser, even though Deadlock has yet to say anything. “Don’t say it.”  
  


Deadlock raises an optical ridge. “Don’t say what?”   
  


Hot Rod scowls, reaching for his bluster. “That I’m – I’m a _whore,”_ he forces out, trying to lace aggression into his voice when all he feels is that sudden fear of rejection lurching up again. It’s not _fair_ , Hot Rod can’t help his frame type and its needs, “’cause I _need_ to be _touched.”  
  
_

Deadlock’s face falls into a stormy expression instantly, his hands tightening on Hot Rod, but not painfully. His EM field fills with protective fury. “Who told you that?” he hisses. “I’ll _kill them.”  
  
_

“Wh-what?” Hot Rod stutters out, even as his spark-mate protocols basically go into over-drive and have him clasping his hands to Deadlock’s arms, trying to huddle into his chest almost before he’s realised he’s moved, his EM field meshing eagerly with his mate’s, letting that protective feeling wash over him, flood him entirely.   
  


His knee bangs Deadlock’s side lightly, pain lancing up, but that’s _nothing_ , nothing compared to the feeling of Deadlock clutching him close in response, one hand squeezing between them to press over Hot Rod’s spark chamber and the other looping behind, up between his spoiler wings, to cup the back of Hot Rod’s neck like he’s protecting that vulnerable area from attack.  
  


“They didn’t fragging deserve you,” Deadlock hisses out, his rumbling voice directly next to Hot Rod’s left audio. “They didn’t deserve a single breem of your presence amongst them.”  
  


Hot Rod trembles as Deadlock pulses furious adoration through the bond, as though such care for him could wash away millions of years of clumsy, oblivious mistreatment. His spark throbs in his chamber, and surely Deadlock can feel that under his hand? Primus, his _hand._ It’s right over Hot Rod’s chest, guarding his spark-chamber, obscuring the Auto-brand from view, replacing it with a new oath, that of protection and loyalty and – maybe, just maybe – love.  
  


Embarrassingly, what comes out in response to his mate’s fervent words is a strained whimpering croon, like all the things Hot Rod wants to say but doesn’t know how to have given up on words entirely and have just tried to distil his _worry-gratitude-awe-need_ down into one sound, one note, begging for Deadlock to have the accompanying piece that will harmonise their melodies together.  
  


Deadlock leans in to press another kiss to Hot Rod’s helm, leaving his lips lingering there. “You’re not a whore,” he murmurs quietly, barely audible over the splatter of falling solvent still drizzling next to them. “You never were; no one is or was. It’s a hideous term. Not before the war, when, I think, _both_ of us used interface as a way of making money, and certainly not now, when you’re so touch-starved you’ll fall into the arms of someone you’ve only known for less days than you can count on one hand. You are yourself, wants and needs and all. _Never_ be ashamed of it.”  
  


“Sometimes I liked it,” Hot Rod whispers into Deadlock’s chest, like a confession. “Sometimes – there were clients who were good, attentive. I mean – there were some that weren’t, and most were somewhere in the middle, but. But sometimes I _liked it._ And – and _liking it_ made you a whore in reality, not just in profession.”  
  


Deadlock doesn’t push him away. He strokes Hot Rod’s helm and says, “That was my experience, too. I chose not to indulge later on, but – everyone needs to be loved. You won’t find judgement from me, I swear it.”  
  


Hot Rod shutters his optics tightly. “I like having my spoiler petted,” he says, hushed. “Not – not just sexually. Just. Friendly. Comforting. An’ mecha always took it as an invitation to _touch_ more than I wanted ‘em to. So I stopped askin’.” _Eventually.  
  
_

Deadlock rumbles his own engine, undulating his EM field to pulse comfort over Hot Rod. “Tell you a secret,” he murmurs against Hot Rod’s helm, “I like havin’ my helm finials stroked, too.”  
  


Hot Rod opens his optics, hesitating for a moment before leaning slowly out of the embrace, Deadlock’s arms loosening easily, though still holding on. He looks at Deadlock directly in the optic – his mate holds his gaze with no hesitation – before asking, “Can I touch ‘em?”  
  


Deadlock flicks his helm finials forward. “Go right ahead,” he says.  
  


Hot Rod gets his hands up, hovering over the sensitive finials, before gently taking hold of them. Deadlock shutters his optics as soon as he does.  
  


Carefully, Hot Rod strokes them just like how he likes his spoiler wings to be stroked, just like how he used to caress the mirroring appendages on some of his fellow entertainers when they comforted each other in the communal quarters underneath the tracks. Deadlock shudders under his touch, and with a growling start, his own engine, equally as powerful as Hot Rod’s, starts to purr also.  
  


“Hmm,” Deadlock croons, his own vocaliser going scratchy and low. “You’re good at this,” he says. “Your touch is wonderful.”  
  


Hot Rod’s faceplates flush, and his engine matches its purrs to Deadlock’s, a two-tone rumble echoing through the little room, the tiles giving them surprisingly good acoustics. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” he says, trying for a light tone but definitely falling short. His spark swells with embarrassed pride – he’s doing a _good job!_ He’s _providing for his mate!_ – but his self-consciousness doesn’t survive the answering pulse of good-humoured acceptance balanced with an equal amount of pride that comes from Deadlock.  
  


“Ain’t flattery if it’s the truth,” Deadlock grins at him, his fangs glinting in the pale strip lights. Hot Rod digs his fingers into the jointure of the finials, just where they meet the helm, and Deadlock’s engine grumbles louder.  
  


And that’s the moment that the lukewarm solvent suddenly splutters in the spigot and turns ice-cold, showering them with freezing droplets.   
  


Hot Rod makes a noise he will later swear is not a squeal, and Deadlock jerks back in place.  
  


“Slag,” Hot Rod curses, removing his hands from Deadlock’s helm. He shivers in place, but he supposes they probably deserve it for lingering so long. “Primus send it to the Pit.”  
  


Deadlock snorts, and unfolds, standing up gracefully, helm finials still twitching. “Need a hand?” he asks, smirking and gesturing to Hot Rod’s state of being stuck in the chair, just within the outer edges of the cold spray.   
  


“If I could stand, I’d shove you under there,” Hot Rod replies immediately, his smart mouth running ahead of his processor. He pauses for a moment, because – being cheeky is second-nature to him, but he hasn’t exactly tried it out much on his mate yet.  


Deadlock only chuckles, though, and reaches out to turn the solvent off at the wall panel. It stops with a splashing stutter. “I think we won’t get much for that heater,” he comments.  
  


“Huh? What'cha mean by that?” Hot Rod asks as Deadlock leans down to lift him, chair and all, and carry him out of the wash-rack. They’re both dripping on the floor as Deadlock juggles them outside, hitting the door panel with his elbow to get them their squeaking exit. Hot Rod clutches at his mate’s large shoulder kibble, steadying himself as he’s taken through the ship like he weighs nothing more than a rifle.   
  


“Think the best way to get rid of the ship is to land it and take it apart,” Deadlock explains as he carries Hot Rod through to the ship’s single cramped hab suite. There’s evidence of a second berth having once been in here, but the broken and rusted connections at the wall and its glaring absence mean that it’s long gone.   
  


Deadlock sets the chair down, leaves to rifle through the storage locker briefly, and comes back with a lightly-stained absorbency cloth. He offers it to Hot Rod after he runs it over his own frame briefly – Hot Rod stares as Deadlock wipes away the droplets clinging to him and doesn’t care that Deadlock meets his optics and smirks – who takes it and begins to dry himself also.  
  


“We’ll not get as many galactic credits for parts as for a whole ship,” Deadlock goes on, “but it’ll obscure our trail far better. Lotta parts are galactic standard sizes, wires and cables and such. If we wipe the computers and are careful about who we sell the engines to, they’ll pretty much never figure out what happened to this battered old skiff.”  
  


Hot Rod hums as he leans down to work the cloth between his armour plates. “Risky,” he comments. “We’ll be without a ship. And with limited credits.”  
  


“For a time, yeah,” Deadlock acknowledges, “but if we choose our station right, we’ll be able to pick up something quite quick. Also. I. Have some money.”  
  


Hot Rod slowly raises his head. “… Go on.”  
  


“Before I joined the Decepticons proper, I spent some time as a mercenary for hire,” Deadlock says, spurring Hot Rod to recall their earlier conversation. “I had the money wired through a Galactic Banking Clan account. It’s still there, gathering interest. I haven’t touched it since before the war.”  
  


“Deadlock,” Hot Rod asks slowly, “are you trying to tell me you’re secretly rich?”  
  


Deadlock’s faceplates heat up visibly a little. “Not – _rich,”_ he says. “I wasn’t working as one for too long before I threw my lot in with Megatron, but – there’s enough for a small ship. Enough for us to start up and get by until I get back into the swing of the mercenary game.” Which is apparently their future job plan. Hot Rod feels like he _should_ care on, like, a moral level, but he’s finding it hard to. The war has left him so tired.  
  


“Why didn’t it get spent before now?” Hot Rod asks, truly curious. “I mean, starting up a revolution takes a fair bit of shanix, y’know?”  
  


“Megatron knew about it,” Deadlock admits, “but he told me not to touch it. If something went wrong, if any assets of public Decepticon figures got frozen or seized, he wanted unaffiliated credits to fall back on. That never happened, so. They’re still there. And, no, before you ask, he doesn’t know the account details. Only that it existed.”  
  


Hot Rod sits back in the damp chair. “It sounds awfully convenient,” he says. “But, if you’re sure it won’t be traced, I’ll take it.”  
  


“It won’t be,” Deadlock reassures. “The G.B.C. place a _lot_ of value on confidentiality. Pretty much every mildly-rich sentient across the known galaxies uses them, including plenty of criminals. They’re absolutely _rolling_ in it. It would do them no good to let any precedent be set regarding tracking or seizure.”  
  


“Oh, I bet the Inter-Planetary Peacekeepers love them,” Hot Rod laughs.  
  


Deadlock grins. “Hate ‘em down to the last atom,” he says. “Now, you get some recharge. I’m gonna go search through the ship’s data-banks for a station that meets our needs.”  
  


Hot Rod nods, letting Deadlock carefully help manoeuvre him out of the chair and onto the berth. Hot Rod slides back a panel on his arm and hands Deadlock one of his cords, letting his mate plug him into the recharge station on the wall. Such stations are not strictly necessary for survival, but their aid in helping defragging processors sure does up quality of life.  
  


Hot Rod lifts an arm to tap on it absently. “Remember to keep this,” he says, even as his frame begins to power down and his voice sounds like it’s coming from far away to his own audios. “Won’t find one suitable for Cybertronians without attractin’ attention.”  
  


“I will,” Deadlock promises, his low voice lulling Hot Rod down deeper. “Don’t you worry, Hot Rod.”  
  


Hot Rod lets out a drawn-out hum as his systems cycle down. “Won’t,” he mumbles, his optical feed cutting out. “You’re here now.”  
  


If Deadlock replies, Hot Rod doesn’t hear it. He’s already in recharge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just feel like everyone should know that the gratuitous bathing sequence that takes up the majority of this chapter was, in fact, _entirely unplanned._
> 
> Also, how I figure recharging works is this: as a human, you both eat and sleep. Massively oversimplifying it, eating replenishes physical energy and sleeping replenishes mental energy. Same for refuelling (filling the tanks) and recharging (defragging the processor and indexing files). 
> 
> Now, think of your computer. Yes, you _can_ go through, say, the cache and delete it manually, or fix a broken short-cut, but it's literally 100 times easier to run a tune-up program to do it for you. And that's what a recharge station does. It's not necessary for survival, but it _is_ a quality of life thing. Alien species having alien needs is far more sexy than just 'humans with a different costume', you feel?
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr.](https://stairre.tumblr.com/) Come and say hello!


	2. Part II

**Resonance**

**Elude**

**Part II**

–

Deadlock leans back in the pilot’s chair and grimaces at the diagnostic read-outs in front of him. It’s not _too bad,_ he supposes, certainly workable, but – it feels like a failure, to not be able to provide the best for Hot Rod.

Hot Rod isn’t expecting the best, Deadlock knows. It doesn’t stop him from wanting to give him it.

The ship’s just overall degraded, though thankfully not the point where it’s metaphorically limping through space. A whole campaign’s worth of wear-and-tear, with little repair opportunities, have certainly battered it all out of shape, though. They’ll probably make more money selling the metal panels to a scrap-yard than they will at a parts shop. At least Cybertronian-style wiring is hardy, that’ll make up a bit for that loss.

Deadlock shutters his optics, reaches for that wonderful bond. Hot Rod’s end is muffled, vague, like dialling audios down to their lowest setting. He’s deep in recharge – an undisturbed one, thankfully, likely due to the recharge unit he’s plugged into – and Deadlock smothers the desire to go and sit at his berth side, and just – watch. Watching someone recharge is _creepy,_ damn it, even if Deadlock feels like going back to check that he’s still there every few breems.

He clenches his fingers around the chair arms, digging his claws into the old foam cushioning. He doesn’t go to check. _Hot Rod’s not going to disappear,_ he tells himself sternly. _We’re in this together, now. He promised._

Deadlock cycles in a vent, holds it ‘til his internal temperature inches up nearly to the warning zone, his internal sensors beginning to register pain, an alert appearing in his HUD, and then ex-vents it in a harsh gust. His fans click on at a low setting, briefly, bringing his frame back to an equilibrium, and then shut off again after a couple of breems, leaving the cock-pit suddenly silent and echoing.

_Get your brain module set firmly in your helm,_ Deadlock tells himself. _One thing at a time. Hot Rod isn’t going to leave if things aren’t perfect immediately. So just_ _break down_ _all of what you need, then work your way down the checklist. You can do this. Just like Gasket taught you, remember? A problem solved in pieces is solved before you know it._

Deadlock reaches forward to dismiss the diagnostic report on the monitor, instead pulling up the local star-map. He doesn’t want to land in one of the nearby space stations, that’s just _begging_ to be caught, but the ship’s fuel levels really aren’t great, even with the vessel running on only its most vital systems. No more hot solvent for them.

_Ugh. Okay, okay, break it down. You know how to do this._ Deadlock narrows his optics at the star-map, studying it, as he mulls over their next steps.

* Task one: they need to get far enough away from any current areas of interest to slip away as unnoticed as possible.  
  
  
* Problem one: the ship won’t take them that far.  
  
  
* Problem two: refuelling the ship will draw attention.

Deadlock pauses a moment, a thought occurring to him, before he minimises the star-map and pulls up the ship schematics.

* Question: is there any other way to get fuel?

Deadlock smiles as he sees the answer typed out on the ship plans with a line pointing to the parts he was looking for.

* Answer: yes, the ship has solar panels.

Deadlock pulls up the diagnostics again, and they’re in luck – the solar panels are dented but useable. He begins to plot a course on the navi-computer to take the ship’s course close to a nearby star as it makes its way out of the hot zone.

Problem one and problem two of their first task are solved. All that he needs to do now is carry it out successfully.

_If you make a big problem you can’t carry a bunch of little problems instead, then each one will fit in your hand,_ Gasket’s voice echoes from memory, _and then they’re manageable. Getting overwhelmed is easy when you’re trying to take on too much at once, but do it bit by bit and you’ll be on the other side in no time at all._

Deadlock shutters his optics, briefly. Primus. It has to be Hot Rod’s fault that he’s thinking about Gasket. Because – Gasket was the last one to treat him this way. Softly. Trusting, to the point where it was practically a challenge. Deadlock’s later relationships had never held that tender undertone, though they had been no less real. It was just that by then, Deadlock had locked tenderness out of his spark.

_Sometimes, the only way out is through, but that doesn’t mean that you drive straight at the wall. You disassemble it brick by brick. Remember this, Drift, ‘cause life’s gonna throw a lot of walls at you. Doesn’t mean you have to smash yourself against ‘em._

–

Hot Rod blinks awake, his recharge cycle falling away with a hum of systems re-initialising from their power-down modes. He feels – good. Achy, yeah, ‘cause his self-repair systems are still running – that patch on his arm has ticked its way up to 67% integration during his recharge cycle – but rested in a way that only uninterrupted recharge can bring. Much better than getting by on brief snatches as the campaign dragged on.

He flexes his joints, listens to the whirr of gears and pistons, and unplugs himself from the recharge station, winding the cord back into its housing and clicking the panel shut. Primus, he always forgets just how much recharge stations help with defragging in the times between access to them. There hadn’t been many in Nyon – well. Not many for the likes of Hot Rod.

He carefully shuffles his way up to a sitting position, trying not to bend his right knee, and then comms Deadlock. _/ Hey. /_

Deadlock responds instantly. _/ Hot Rod. Awake, I see? /_

_/ Yeah, /_ Hot Rod says, grateful that the yawn he lets out doesn’t translate over private comm. _/ Get me into the cockpit and up to speed, an’ then plug in yourself, /_ he tells Deadlock, _/ you must be due a recharge. ‘Specially as I’ve been dead-weight so far. /_

_/_ _You are not dead-weight, /_ Deadlock says firmly, which is pretty much a blatant lie, but a nice enough sentiment, _/ but I’m on my way. /_ He closes the comm channel.

The ship is, by design, compressed as small as it can be while still sporting its necessary armaments and stealth shielding. As such, Hot Rod barely has to wait a single minute before Deadlock’s opening the door and walking in.

Hot Rod winces. Deadlock’s systems are running louder than they should be – a sure sign of strain – and his optics are at two slightly different brightness levels. Clear signs of recharge deprivation. Frag, how selfish can Hot Rod _be?_ It’s, what, the third day after they deserted? And Hot Rod knows well the utter lack of rest a hot zone brings.

Deadlock’s teetering on the edge of his frame shutting down into a forced recharge cycle while Hot Rod’s been a useless lump of slag, taking over the berth and the recharge station, not contributing to their escape, using up their limited medical supplies… It’s a fraggin’ _disgrace,_ is what it is.

Deadlock pauses, and he must be feeling the guilt that’s pulsing through the bond. “Hot Rod?” he asks.

“I’m sorry,” Hot Rod says, dropping the words into the room like a stone clattering down a mine shaft. He’s never been good at apologies, always been more likely to bluster his way through some sort of reparative action instead, and hope that the other will recognise the implicit regret. But – it’s _Deadlock._ It’s his _spark-mate._

“What for?” Deadlock asks, sudden fear and trepidation emanating from his side of the bond, and _frag._ Hot Rod’s bungling this up already. Could he be any _vaguer?_

“You’re standin’ there ‘bout ready to fall over an’ I’ve been nothin’ but a resource drain,” Hot Rod clarifies. “We’re in this together an’ I’m not pulling my weight.”

Deadlock – relaxes. Desperate relief floods the bond. “It’s not for long,” he replies. “Just ‘til we get some replacement parts. I know you must be frustrated.”

Hot Rod tilts his helm, narrowing his optics. “What did you think I was gonna say?” he asks.

Deadlock quiets a moment, reluctance flowing from his spark, but speaks before Hot Rod can go on to reassure him that he doesn’t have to explain if he doesn’t want to. “I was… I thought you were going to say that you’d made a mistake.” He clenches and unclenches a fist, touches one hand to the spark-mate mark Hot Rod left on his forearm, and refuses to meet Hot Rod’s optics. “That you’d changed your mind. Were going to go back to the Autobots. Were goin’ to leave.” _Were going to leave_ _ **me.**_

Horror rushes through Hot Rod like someone’s tipped a bucket of liquid nitrogen straight over his head. “No!” he says, fast, lurching forward as though to stand and take hold of Deadlock, to give some physical punctuation to his words, but his right knee flares in pain and he drops back, leaning awkwardly against the wall with a grunt. “No,” he repeats again, as Deadlock rebalances after an aborted jerk forward to catch Hot Rod had he fallen. “Never. I’m _never_ going back.”

Deadlock stays in place for a moment, red optics locked to Hot Rod’s blue, before he shutters them with a deep ex-vent. “I would not blame you if you left,” he says quietly. “I have done terrible things in the name of a lost dream. I’m well-known enough amongst Autobot ranks that you’ll know a few of them, at least. And I can tell you that there are many more.”

“I’m not leavin’,” Hot Rod says, his stubbornness rearing its head. “I know you’ve done awful slag. An’ I know I have, too. Maybe we _don’t_ deserve a second chance, but we got it anyway, an’ I don’t plan on wastin’ it. I ain’t gonna go crawlin’ back to the Autobots, an’ I ain’t gonna leave my fraggin’ _spark-mate_ now that I’ve found him.” Then Hot Rod hesitates a moment before adding on, pained. “Unless you want me to.”

Deadlock works his mouth for a moment before he chokes out, “Don’t go.”

Hot Rod’s stuck on the berth – blast his knee! – but he reaches out his hands towards Deadlock, silently urging his mate to take them in his own. Deadlock does, grasping Hot Rod’s hands and clinging tight, like Hot Rod is the only lifeline standing between him and a bottomless gorge. Their fingers slide against each other, and it’s strange, in a way, that two completely differently sized mecha could have hands that slot so well together, falling into place on instinct alone.

“I’m not leaving,” Hot Rod says, and he could say it softly, reassuringly, but he doesn’t. He says it like it’s fact, like he’s stalking into the arena and meeting the optics of the crowd that would cheer at his death. Defiant, the way he’s always been. “So why don’t you sling me over a data packet to get me up to speed, and then take over this berth? I can’t walk, but I sure can sit in a pilot’s chair and get us where we need to be.”

Deadlock sends the needed information on a data channel, then lowers himself to pick up Hot Rod, sliding his hands down Hot Rod’s arms and to his torso, carefully lifting him and straightening. Hot Rod, once he’s high enough, shifts an arm around Deadlock’s shoulders to help distribute the weight, and reviews the data-pack as Deadlock manoeuvres them towards the cockpit.

“Renta VII?” he asks, as Deadlock’s settling him into the pilot’s chair. “Do we have the fuel to get that far?”

Deadlock nods. “I’ve set the navi-computer to take us on a course past a nearby star,” he says. “There’re solar panels we can utilise to boost our way. Renta VII has a little out-of-the-way space station, but it’s not far from the Lof’ge–Timir Trade Route. I wouldn’t call it a smuggler’s haven, exactly, but it’s got enough officials there who’ll look the other way for some credits.”

“Perfect, then,” Hot Rod says as he leans forward to pull up the plotted course. “Doesn’t the Timir System have a load of shipyards in it?” he goes on, pulling on what little he knows.

“Yes,” Deadlock replies, “with Renta VII relatively nearby, there’re sure to be some decent ships up for sale.”

“Yeah,” Hot Rod says, “but we’re gonna get them at an inflated price, if they deign to do business with us at all. The Timirians _hate_ us Cybertronians. Since – yeah.”

“Since we made a battlefield of one of their colonies?” Deadlock finishes, wryly. “Something like four thousand dead, I believe?”

Hot Rod grimaces. The Decepticons had opened up agreements with that colony to use their shipyards at a reduced price in return for raw materials. The Autobots had found out and – well. Hot Rod’s old side had launched the first bombs, writing off the Timirian colony as an associated guilty party, rather than a neutral one outside the realm of their war.

There’s arguments for both sides, but – there’s also over four thousand dead, and yet another species in the known galaxies who hate Cybertronians. “I know,” he says, making in clear in his tone that he doesn’t want to continue this line of conversation.

Deadlock does not comment, in an act of mercy most would deem uncharacteristic. “If you’re ready to take over the ship, I’m going for that recharge cycle now,” he says instead.

“’Kay,” Hot Rod replies, glancing up at him from the screen. “A full one, you hear? I don’t wanna be seein’ you for a good few hours.”

“I will,” Deadlock sighs lightly, but presses a kiss to the top of Hot Rod’s helm. “See you later.”

He walks out, the cockpit door rattling its way shut. Hot Rod listens in silence ‘til Deadlock’s footsteps have stopped reaching his audios. He looks down at the plotted course, at the labelled dot of Renta VII, the text proclaiming the Lof’ge–Timir Trade Route, and thinks, forcibly, of nothing at all.

–

The officials at Renta VII make them wait almost nine hours in orbit before they get cleared to dock.

Even though he expected such, Deadlock’s still relieved when they’re down on the ground. The frightful solar winds from the system’s sun that make an orbital station impossible have been rattling their ship in a most alarming way, especially considering the number of rattles it already came with.

During the time he was in recharge – and Deadlock isn’t prideful enough to say that it wasn’t a very welcome recharge cycle – Hot Rod has gotten them almost on top of Renta VII and even begun initial communications with the station crew before Deadlock had even awoken. Deadlock’s a good ninety per cent certain that Hot Rod’s natural upbeat charisma had helped smooth the way considerably.

He hopes that, soon, he’ll be able to witness that determined cheer in person, rather than just through linked dreams, the sharing of memory files through the bond whilst in recharge. Deadlock’s only had that stronger, fulfilled bond for not quite four day cycles, and already he cannot bear the thought of going back to the muted, unfulfilled bond. He wonders how he ever managed to get by with only that bare minimum unity of before; the thought of Hot Rod’s spark so distant is near-sickening already.

Quietly, he wonders if Hot Rod’s had any dreams of him yet, or if his overclocked self-repair systems have been dragging him down too far to bond-share. Deadlock fears to ask; does Hot Rod treat him so kindly because he’s oblivious to the horrors of Deadlock, or because he’s accepting? Deadlock isn’t sure what answer he wants to hear more, at this point. Surely, if his mate is unknowing, then such a thing cannot last? But what if Hot Rod _changes_ how he looks at him? And still Deadlock feels a – misguided, he knows – need to shelter Hot Rod from the stains on his spark.

“Okay, thank you,” Hot Rod says over the comm to the official. His Conmerix – a widely-used trading language throughout the known galaxies – is much better than Deadlock’s, who has only passing fluency and an accent so terrible that even he internally cringes at it. “Dock F-6, got it. Out.”

The comm clicks off and Hot Rod leans back in the seat, stretching his limbs and flicking his spoiler. “That’s that sorted,” he says on a sigh. “I think F-6 is gonna be the one farthest away from everything, but at least we’ve got a space. I thought we were gonna be stuck up here for way longer.”

“That we’re bringing them business probably helps,” Deadlock says. “You _did_ ask about buying another ship, didn’t you?”

“’Course,” Hot Rod scoffs. “They’ll probably even shove us to the front of their paperwork processing list. They don’t want Cybertronians sticking around any longer than strictly necessary. Not that I blame ‘em, but, y’know. Whatever. If it gets us outta here faster I’ll take it.”

At that moment, the go-ahead signal comes through on their monitor, and Hot Rod takes control of the ship, guiding it down through the atmosphere, the winds still battering them but not quite as furiously the more they descend. A spread of orange-yellow stretches before them, the greys and silvers of the space station a sprawling eye-catcher.

“We’ll still have to be careful,” Deadlock says over the sound of the engines juddering as they’re forced to operate under higher gravity, though he doesn’t think for a second that Hot Rod doesn’t already know that. “They might decide to simply rid the universe of another couple of Cybertronians if they think they can get away with it. The Galactic Council would probably look the other way, too.”

Hot Rod groans. “Yeah, I know. But we found that cover-paint earlier, so we can conceal our symbols and pass as Neutrals for long enough to get our business done. Also – high quality dissolving solution. We need it. Well – uh. _I_ need it.”

Deadlock looks down at his own Decepticon symbol, fingers coming up automatically to touch it. It’s made from a piece of his spark chamber, and welded onto his front, so it’s slightly raised in comparison to Hot Rod’s smooth Auto-brand. Getting rid of it is… Deadlock does not have the words. It was a powerful oath he took, and he meant every word of it. Even now, the thought of prying it away makes him flinch.

_Megatron_ _ain’t_ _the sole embodiment of the Decepticon cause._ Hot Rod – his _spark-mate’s –_ words echo back through his memory.

“Deadlock?” Hot Rod asks. The ship’s coming in for a landing, now, and Hot Rod was right before; their dock is on the very outskirts of the station.

Deadlock stills the digits that were fingering his raised Decepticon symbol. “This will need to be pried away with a plasma cutter,” he says. “And – if possible – I would like it to be reattached to my spark chamber.”

“That’s dangerous,” Hot Rod says, worriedly, and for a moment Deadlock thinks that his mate will try to argue against him, try to make him see some sort of _reason_ why he can’t do that, but – “We’ll need to find a medic for that,” Hot Rod goes on. “Like, cutting it away will be easy enough, but I ain’t got the know-how to do anything involving your spark chamber.”

“Yes,” Deadlock says, strangled, after a moment, “I agree. Reattachment can wait.”

“We’ll put a plasma cutter on the list, then,” Hot Rod hums. “We’ll need one anyway for a proper med-kit. Along with, like, a good eighty per cent of everything else that comes standard.”

Deadlock snorts lightly, though he knows it isn’t actually funny. “Hiema’s been a long campaign,” he says. “Nobody has enough of anything.”

“’Cept ammo,” Hot Rod mutters. “Swear that’s all the requisition team ever fraggin’ orders. Ordered. Primus.”

Deadlock doesn’t bother to react to Hot Rod getting his tenses wrong. It’s not like he’s been any different these past couple days, if mostly in the confines of his own thoughts. The war’s been going on nearly three-million years. It’s a long time, even for Cybertronians. Rusty adjustment is to be expected. Still…

“Just be careful out on the station,” Deadlock says. “We’re Neutrals now. And they don’t know we’re defectors.”

Hot Rod clicks his glossa. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “’Sides, it’ll be you venturing out first, ‘cause I sure ain’t goin’ anywhere fast.”

The ship’s down on the ground now, and the engines peter off with a worrying clattering and the hiss of systems depressurising. One moment later, the artificial gravity inside the ship readjusts and matches the outside planetary gravity, and the two of them suddenly feel a little lighter. Renta VII’s gravity is maybe three-quarters that of Cybertron, which is the default setting on every ship Deadlock’s ever been on that hadn’t belonged to another species that he was in the process of raiding.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Deadlock says.

“Cover paint’s in the overhead locker by the cabin door,” Hot Rod replies. “And – yeah. I’ll see you soon.”

–

The cover paint’s spec ops standard, so it takes all of maybe a breem to dry. Deadlock’s eager to get a hold of a plasma cutter, though, even though he knows that without sensor-net dampening chips it’s going to hurt. _It’d be best to get it over and done with,_ he tells himself, _a quick stop to any lingering sentiment, and, more importantly, less chance of putting Hot Rod in danger._

He gets stares as he walks swiftly amongst the interstellar marketplace, and people give him a wide berth. Cybertronians are not the _largest_ species out there by any stretch of the imagination, but – they have a reputation. Deadlock firmly keeps his optics away from catching on any one person’s eyes, and roves them across the stalls and signs, trying to find a parts shop.

There. He ducks inside. The cashier’s long ears flick straight upright in a classic display of startled fear, but Deadlock doesn’t feel any satisfaction at that response. Once, many, _many_ years ago, he had, because he’d spent so long being afraid that it felt good to be the one causing the fear instead. Those days are long past, though, and there are no Decepticons around to put on a show for, so he merely nods at them as politely as he can, and shifts his attention to the display units. He keeps the cashier in his peripheral vision, of course – he didn’t survive the war this long by getting _complacent –_ but he tries not to let his body language display anything but neutrality.

Deadlock picks up a plasma cutter, some gears that are, if not the right material, then at least the right size, a new welder, the tin of dissolving solution, and some other assorted tools and materials. Most of this will be going straight into their new med-kit, but he doesn’t mention this to the worker, because such an admission will both reveal a current weakness and maybe result in a price rise because Cybertronians are really, _really_ unpopular.

The cashier puts him through without talking to him, failing to meet his optics but their eyes constantly darting to what his hands are doing. Deadlock keeps his movements precise and slow as he packs away the purchases into his subspace and pays with the G.B.C. account he hasn’t touched for aeons. The price isn’t even hiked up, though fear and surprise could be a factor in that. Deadlock has no doubt that as soon as word gets around that there are a pair of Cybertronians on the station, everything will very suddenly become more expensive.

“Thank you,” he says, in his poor Conmerix, before leaving quickly, optics darting about the marketplace outside seeking out any person who is looking a bit _too_ interested, while occasionally raising his head to spy out any points a sniper could conceal themselves. There are a few, but no one’s in them. He heads back to the ship fast anyway.

No one follows, but Deadlock can still feel the weight of their gazes on his back.

–

Hot Rod’s more than happy to see the gears amongst the parts Deadlock picked up.

“Nice,” he comments, picking one up. The metal isn’t cybertonium, but Hot Rod’s nanites will fix that as it integrates. It’s not like the patch on his arm – now 73% – started out as cybertonium either. It’ll itch like the Pit, but the parts are serviceable.

“Got most of the med-kit,” Deadlock says as he lays out the tools and parts. “Thought that was most immediately important.”

“Did you check on the ships for sale?” Hot Rod asks, though he knows it’s unlikely. Deadlock wasn’t gone for that long.

True to expectation, Deadlock shakes his head. “No. Thought we’d go together. I didn’t want to linger, but I didn’t want to seem like I was trying to get off the station as fast as I could. That sort of thing attracts attention.”

Hot Rod nods understandingly. “No one’s called while you were gone. I’ve set about downloading the ship’s data onto portable drives and wiping it afterwards.” He points to the monitor, which shows a loading bar. “It’ll finish in the next few hours an’ then we can start takin’ this thing apart.”

“Good riddance,” Deadlock mutters as he pulls out the near-empty med-kit bag from underneath a console and begins to fill it with the new parts and tools. “How’s your knee?”

Hot Rod’s mouth twists. “Not great,” he admits. “Sensor-net’s throwing a fit, but – it’s not that bad. In comparison to some slag I’ve taken.”

Deadlock frowns, but doesn’t answer. It’s a war. A blown knee joint is more than a bit inconvenient, but hardly life-threatening. And – his mate was part of an infamous suicide squad. Deadlock shutters his optics at that, spark tightening as he briefly considers all the terrors that Hot Rod must have seen, must have faced head-on with a shrieking laugh because the Wreckers had a well-earnt reputation. 

“Hey,” Hot Rod says, “it’s okay.” The conflicted emotions coming from Deadlock dampen a little. “That’s over with, now.” He hopes so anyway, hopes with all his spark.

“Let’s get that knee sorted,” Deadlock says, and if it’s a change in conversational topic, then Hot Rod doesn’t call him out on it.

Deadlock kneels down in front of Hot Rod still in the pilot’s chair, and – uh. No, bad Hot Rod. Repairs are not really that sexy. Deadlock definitely is, though, and his burning red gaze as he narrows his optics and concentrates, when offset against his careful, precise handling of Hot Rod’s knee as he unhooks the brace, clearly trying not to jar it, is… something. It’s something.

_It’s not like he hasn’t already been caring for you for days or anything,_ Hot Rod tells himself wryly, perhaps somewhat annoyed at his processor’s sudden reshuffling of his priority tree.

Then the pain starts as Deadlock places his digits directly onto the knee joint, and all the sensors there shriek that _something’s there, something’s there that_ _ **shouldn’t**_ _be there!_ and Hot Rod’s train of thought is derailed.

Hot Rod hisses lowly, then mutes his vocaliser. Deadlock murmurs something that’s probably an apology, but doesn’t stop or slow down. That’s good, Hot Rod decides firmly, because just getting this over with is pretty much the only way to stop the pain faster.

Deadlock slots in the replacement gears with deft fingers, those slight claws he has mending instead of rending. Hot Rod says _slight_ claws, because he’s certainly seen mecha with nastier ones, and Deadlock’s look like they’re a transformable mod that slides over the tips of more standard, rounded digits. Hot Rod absently wonders why he keeps them in clawed state, but then remembers that Deadlock’s reputation is probably what kept him mostly safe in the Decepticon ranks. His mate is incredibly deadly, his lethality _legendary,_ but – he’s not physically imposing, the way a lot of ‘Cons are. Hot Rod’s more than familiar with appearance being everything.

Hot Rod sighs in relief as Deadlock rests his weight back, removing his fingers from his internals. Glancing down, he can see that all the new gears are in place. His HUD tells him they’re at 2% integration. He tests the knee joint carefully at Deadlock’s gesture, extending it and then bending it again. Nothing but a faint twinge from his sensor-net, and the parts glide smooth with the lubricant Deadlock applied while Hot Rod was mostly stuck in his own thoughts.

“All clear?” Deadlock asks. Hot Rod nods, then grimaces at the patch Deadlock picks up next. “Put it this way,” Deadlock says, dryly, “at least this time, the welder’s not gonna try to melt the rest of your internals.”

Hot Rod snorts. “Please tell me you’re gonna throw away the old one,” he says, unmuting his vocaliser briefly.

“I’ll give you the honour of doing it yourself,” Deadlock says as he positions the patch over the gap in Hot Rod’s knee. “Now, this isn’t going to be pretty, but it will be functional.”

Hot Rod manually turns down the sensor-net in that armour plate as much as he can without medical over-rides, and stiffly settles back in the chair. This won’t be fun, no matter how nice Deadlock looks as he shifts in place between Hot Rod’s legs and administers care.

Hot Rod grits his denta when the welding starts, shuttering his optics and muting the scream that wants to come out. Deadlock’s spark pulses comfort, though, and Hot Rod grips on to that feeling as his repairs are undertaken.

His spark-mate protocols find all this attention to be very attractive. Hot Rod definitely doesn’t have a medical kink – though Deadlock’s low voice on the other hand is, um, Hot Rod sets aside that thought for later – but he _does_ like undivided attention, the more intense the better. And hey, hopefully he’ll be getting more of that soon, _without_ the injury to get in the way.

Yeah. Frag. It’s been four days and Hot Rod’s got it _bad._ Oh well, at least he has the excuse that Deadlock is his spark-mate, ‘cause he’d be mortified for himself otherwise.

Deadlock works away, repressing a smile at the tumultuous feelings pulsing through the bond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this reads like a vaguely boring A→B transition chapter, I did try to pepper in softer moments to counteract the lack of action/angsty background :( Of the three chapters in this story, this one took the longest to write, and it was like pulling teeth, I swear. Hope you enjoy anyway!
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr.](https://stairre.tumblr.com/) Come and say hello!


	3. Part III

**Resonance**

**Elude**

**Part III**

–

The official at the docks where the on-sale ships are looks at them suspiciously over xir rebreather, the twin long fins protruding from each of xir temples twitching. Honestly? Hot Rod’s kind of surprised that xe hasn’t thrown the spray bottle of water that xe must use to keep xir skin moist over them yet.

“A ship?” xe says, flatly. The gills on xir neck flare. Hot Rod’s a bit surprised to see such a clearly-aquatic species on Renta VII, which has no natural liquids, but – it’s hardly his place to question the life choices of strangers.

Deadlock nods. “Light-weight, but good shielding,” he tells xem, “capable of supporting added armaments. Cybernetic-sentient make if you have.”

Primus, that would makes things easier, wouldn’t it? Cybertronians are not the only cybernetic life-forms around, though they are, unfortunately, the most infamous. A ship designed for mecha – even if mecha not Cybertronian – would be a huge boon.

“I have one,” the official says. “If it gets you out of here faster, you can see it right away. Ships of such make rarely sell well in these parts.”

Deadlock and Hot Rod allow themselves to be led towards the end of the dock, where the ships on sale begin to look unusual and non-standard. More familiar, better-selling ships are very far behind them – space ships are, by nature, not small – by the time they reach the one their guide is taking them to.

… It’s Cybertronian in make. Primus, Hot Rod even recognises the model; a Kalis Ty-Con 9A12. The resistance in Nyon used to have one. Well. They’d had the _remains_ of one, which they repurposed as a secret safe house, disguised as just more trash in the junk yard it had sat in, its wings bent and broken.

“May we see its documentation?” Hot Rod asks, ‘cause, frag. Unless there’s something _really_ wrong with this thing, they’re gonna take it.

The official pulls out a data-pad, resting the screen in the crook of xir arm and tapping away with fingers that have membrane stretching between them. Only a couple of minutes pass before the pad is handed to them and Deadlock takes it, scrolling through the information and holos of the inside quickly.

“So, where did you get this ship?” Hot Rod asks, turning on the charm and showing the official an interested face. It’s a ship that’s a long way from home, after all, and it doesn’t even have the tell-tale signs of being retrofitted for combat, so it can’t be a former Autobot or Decepticon vessel.

The official’s fins curl in what Hot Rod interprets as a shrug. “Came in while my predecessor had this job,” xe says. “She said it got brought in amongst a small trading convoy along with a couple others. If you ask me, its previous owner was probably, ah, _liberated_ of it by them. We get a lot of that ‘round here.”

_Pirates._ Hot Rod’s polite smile falters, slightly, before he turns its wattage back up. “I see,” he says, non-committally. The brief, complicated twist of emotions from Deadlock echoes his own feelings on the matter. Whoever had this before – Primus, probably some Neutral just trying to get by – likely met a messy end.

The official makes a scoffing sound. “I sure hope you do,” xe says. “I want it gone and I want you gone. Don’t push this station’s tolerance.” _Or somebody might get ideas._

Hot Rod nods. A part of him wants to get angry, the part that chafes at being treated like rust, the same way he’s been treated most of his life. The other part, the logical part he usually doesn’t listen to, tells him to just suck it up and bear it, they’ll be gone soon anyway. “We won’t.”

The official makes a resonant hum, the kind of sound that comes from a voice box used at least partially for echolocation, and turns xir head, stepping away from them. Xe pulls out xir spray bottle, spritzing water up and down xir arms, over xir face, rubbing in the moisture. Hot Rod recognises a dismissal when he sees one, and he turns towards Deadlock.

“How’s it lookin’?” he says aloud while simultaneously asking _/ So is there any trap inside it? /_ over private comm.

Deadlock hums, turning the data-pad for Hot Rod to see. “Good condition,” he says. “Shields are outdated but I know how to boost ‘em up with what we’ve got. Nothing’s in disrepair, just a bit old.” Over the comms he says back, _/ Nothing that I can see ‘til we get inside. The holos are old. Ship’s been here a while. There’s – some décor left over from whatever sorry spark had it previous, and some signs of a fight, but all the damage is cosmetic. /_

“The engines?” Hot Rod asks, scanning through the holos. What Deadlock says is true, and he feels a curl of vague grief at another of his kind lost to death. _/ Fits in with the pirate theory, then. Frag. You think the chances of some sentient here rigging up something_ _nasty_ _for us is high? /_

“Same make the model comes with when it’s new outta the factory,” Deadlock answers, “we’re not likely to get a better fit anywhere near here.” He takes the pad back and pulls up the assessment report conducted by the salespeople, letting Hot Rod see the raw data of the ship. _/ Depends. It’s not likely there’s anything rigged right now. But if we buy it and then leave to tear apart our other ship, we’re far more likely to come back to an unwelcome surprise. /_

“No, I suppose we’re not,” Hot Rod agrees. _/ D’you reckon we can get a look inside, then if it’s good buy it an’ have it moved over to F-6 immediately?_ _Too quick for any sneaky business? /_

_/ That might be our best bet. /_ Deadlock turns to the official. “May we have a look inside?” he asks.

The official flicks xir fins and nods. “Go ahead,” xe says. “If you want to take it for a flight, there’re security measures in place to prevent it going higher than the mesosphere. Don’t let it get that far.”

Deadlock and Hot Rod nod, and the official takes back xir data-pad, fiddling with the screen. After a moment, a code is transmitted to them on their data channels. Neither Hot Rod nor Deadlock touch it, their security programs immediately isolating it from the rest of their systems, the wariness of war having long dissolved any trust in strange data-packs.

“That’s a temporary code to get in,” the official tells them. “I’ll be waiting here.”

_/ Let me, /_ Deadlock tells Hot Rod. _/ I have better firewalls. /_ He strengthens his shields and opens the data-pack carefully.

Thankfully, what the official told them is true. It really is only a temp code for ship access.

“Thank you,” Hot Rod tells the official, “we’ll not be long.”

The official grunts, twitches xir fins, and says nothing.

–

Deadlock and Hot Rod have their scanners on before they even set pede down on the ship’s retractable boarding ramp. If there’s anything awry, long experience will catch it.

It seems that Deadlock’s prediction holds true, however. Nothing’s – yet – been done to this ship. Neither of them let their guards down ‘til each room has been cleared and the internal mechanics opened up and searched, though.

“This one, then?” Hot Rod asks, slotting a panel back onto the wall and dialling his optical brightness back down now that he’s no longer peering into a dark interior trying to spot hidden bombs or listening devices.

“We’ll give it a spin first,” Deadlock answers, “but – I think so. The identification chip has been wiped completely, so we’ll need to name it and put an alignment in its ping, but. I think we’re good.”

Hot Rod sighs in relief. They’ve had some strokes of good luck here, and while they’re not in the clear yet… eh. The resistance always said that he had the luck of Primus guiding him. Hot Rod’s not sure if that’s strictly true, but it _is_ immutable fact that he ends up escaping bad situations more or less scuff-free on an alarmingly regular basis.

(He casts a thought, briefly, to those he called his comrades not a few days ago. Do they mourn for him? Lucky Roddy’s luck had finally run out, as far as they know. Hot Rod doesn’t know how he feels about that prospect, so he dumps the whole line out of active processing.)

“Ugh,” Hot Rod sighs, looking up at the ceiling. The strip lights there bear the faded brand imprint of a Cybertronian company long since gone, “not looking forward to getting back to F-6 an’ doing this all over again with the other ship.”

Deadlock grunts in agreement. Just because they’ve got a lot of experience with it doesn’t mean that it’s a fun job. Both of them have seen too many people fall, not to enemy fire, but to lethal security measures. Hot Rod saw some nasty slag back in Nyon, and it only got worse since then.

“Let’s see what these engines can do, huh?” Hot Rod proposes, already ducking into the cockpit. At least the seats are in surprisingly good condition. All the ones in the war ships Hot Rod’s been in are worn down to their frames, the cushioning too flat by millennia of mecha sitting in them to be of any use.

Deadlock trails a claw over the faded scorch mark from a blaster on the wall. “Let’s.”

–

The official has an understanding look cross xir face as they finalise the transaction – more expensive than it should be, just as they thought – and request to move the ship themselves. Not an empathic sort of understanding. Just an _I can see your train of thought_ sort of understanding. Xe does let them do it, though, so chances are high that xe really does just want Deadlock and Hot Rod gone from the station as fast as possible, and is not attached to any notion of them dying here.

They get back to F-6 and Hot Rod guards their new ship whilst Deadlock clears the one they left unattended. Thankfully, it seems like nobody’s been by, perhaps too afraid to touch anything Cybertronian-made and pick up bad luck.

Superstitious, maybe, but – career spacers are always superstitious, with plenty of weird tales to back them up. Sailors of the stars and all that. Either way, Deadlock gives the all clear, coming back down the boarding ramp with their med-kit slung on one arm and the recharge station, freshly pried out of the wall, under the other.

“So that we have a spare,” he says at Hot Rod’s look. “Anything else in there you can think of that we want?”

“Lemme check,” Hot Rod says, walking up and in.

He ends up taking the admittedly-worn brushes from inside the wash-rack and the tin of cover-paint, but Deadlock has everything else, including the data drives they downloaded from the ship’s computers. “Yeah, we’re good,” Hot Rod says, exiting, seeing Deadlock sitting on the boarding ramp and staring out down the empty dock like he’s on guard, “let’s rip this thing apart.”

They spend the next few hours doing just that, stripping the wiring and internals, hauling the engines out, wiping the consoles of literally everything else still on them and then further securing them by taking their circuitry and drives apart to sell as parts rather than risk selling whole computers. They keep the solar panels, though, storing them inside their new ship along with the old ship’s shield generators for future instalment.

A few passersby from the end of the docks stare as they venture past, but none actually dare step foot – or, indeed, any other limb – onto Dock F-6. Hot Rod has no doubt that their ship disassembly will be known all across the station by tomorrow. Not that he and Deadlock plan on staying here that long. Time is relative in space, but Renta VII’s day cycle is long, so there’s still light in the sky, even though between nine hours in orbit and a few more down here it’s stacking together quick.

Hot Rod gets more and more anxious the longer they stay, though they’re going as fast as they can. More time here is more time for someone to catch word of a pair of Cybertronians on Renta VII, and maybe decide to get a bit too interested. From the reflective echo is his spark, Deadlock feels the same.

Finally, there’s nothing left to do but start removing the rivets and piling up the metal parts that form the frame of the ship. They’re scuffed and dented and scorched in places, hardly the best quality. Still, it’s worth a lot as raw material, so if there’s a forge here – and there will be, it’s too lucrative a profession out here amongst the space lanes to avoid finding one if not several on any chosen space station – they’ll likely take it for a semi-decent price.

“Let’s keep back some of the wiring and cables,” Hot Rod proposes, “in case of future repairs. We won’t get Cybertronian-make easily.”

Deadlock doesn’t bother to verbally reply, he simply scoops up the necessary parts and puts them in their new ship. Coming back out, he runs a look over the disassembled ship parts and says, “One of us is going to need to go find a parts shop to come and pick this up. We can’t move this alone.”

“I’ll go,” Hot Rod says, straightening up from sorting the piles of wiring into their different types, “I did that kind of stuff in Nyon. A cute smile and spoiler wing flutters went further than you’d think.” _‘Course,_ Hot Rod tacks on in his thoughts ambivalently, _I sometimes had to back that up._

Deadlock’s face flies through several emotions at once. Grimacing, he says, “Okay.”

Hot Rod snickers. “That was your protective subroutines throwing a fit, wasn’t it?”

Deadlock huffs out a sharp vent. “Yes,” he admits. “I know logically that you’re highly capable, and to question your competence would be belittling. But – I still want to keep you out of potential danger. I can’t help that.”

Hot Rod understands. A lot of mecha have looked at him – small, cute, bright colours – and seen something to try and shelter. It’s an attitude that’s followed Hot Rod his whole life. Most of the time, he finds it frustrating; it’s like being patted on the head and told not to worry about things, someone else is taking care of them. Deadlock’s spark-mate protocols must be taking that feeling and amplifying it ten-fold.

“But you can help how you act on it,” Hot Rod says simply. “Not gonna lie, you’re doing well so far. Long as you keep respectin’ me the way you have been, we’re not gonna have problems.”

Deadlock nods. “Treating people like _people_ was one of the founding principles, back at the start,” he says, quiet. “It got lost somewhere along the way.”

Hot Rod lets a bitter smile stretch upon his lips. “We never had that. Optimus started that part, but before – we were founded by the Senate, an’ we all know what values _they_ upheld. I mean, I say _we,_ but I wasn’t there at that point, an’ you couldn’t have gotten me there for all the shanix in the universe. So. Yeah.”

“I don’t really know if I have much of an opinion on Optimus Prime,” Deadlock muses.

Hot Rod scoffs. “Oh, _I_ have an opinion all right. But not here. And not while sober, by Primus. There’s – a lot to talk about with him.”

Deadlock makes a hum of agreement. “A change of topic, then,” he says. “The parts?”

“Lemme take a few holos an’ then I’ll go,” Hot Rod says, rooting around in his subspace for a spare data-pad. He checks the status of his integrated weapons systems in his HUD – online again – then the state of his rifle and pistol. “I don’t suppose it would do us any favours to try an’ pick up ammo packs, would it?” 

“Not likely,” Deadlock says, “but I have some that will fit your blasters. I keep – a lot of ammo in my subspace. We’ll pick up some elsewhere, when we’re in more of a position to take our leave quickly.”

Hot Rod nods, lowering the data-pad from where he’d been taking holos of their organised piles. “’Kay,” he says, “I’ll be back soon. Don’t die while I’m gone.”

Deadlock snorts as he passes Hot Rod a couple of blaster packs from his subspace, watching as his mate loads them into his guns and tucks them away. It never hurts to be prepared for the worst. “I could say the same to you.”

–

Hot Rod’s spoiler wings are fanned out wide, trying to capture as much sensory data as possible while he skirts along the fringes of the marketplace, searching for a metalworking store. People are staring, and people are whispering, but no one’s yet following him, so. He’s gonna take that as a good sign.

He keeps having to suspend his battle programs, which keep trying to come online. Yes, he’s feeling exposed. Yes, this is stressful. No, he does not need to look any more potentially threatening than he already does. There’s already a couple of peacekeepers keeping their eyes on him as he walks along, he doesn’t need to give their trigger fingers any incitement to twitch.

Hot Rod finally sees what he’s looking for, a shop with an attached yard, full to the brim with ship parts. He ducks inside the shop itself and beams his brightest, nicest, friendliest smile at the worker inside. “Hello!”

The worker stiffens, then rises from their crouched position stocking low shelves. “How may I help you?” they ask curtly.

Hot Rod ignores the borderline-rude tone. At least they’re talking to him. “We’re lookin’ to sell parts of a disassembled ship,” he says. “Does this store buy, or will I have to go elsewhere?”

The worker pauses, visibly weighs it up, and asks, “What are you selling?”

Hot Rod telegraphs his movements as he pulls the data-pad out of his subspace and shows the worker the holos he took, listing off the contents of each image out loud as the worker flicks through them. “Cybertronian-make internal wiring, sizes D4, D5 and J2, Cybertronian-make internal cabling, sizes G3 and S4, circuit boards, strip lighting, twice-reinforced sheets of crystal glass…” On and on it goes. Ships – even small ones – have a lot of components.

“We’ll take most of it,” the worker tells him after a brief comm-call to their boss, “but the sheet metal and panelling isn’t in the best condition.” They hesitate for a moment, before they add on, “But there’s a blacksmith on the west arm of the station. You might have more luck there.”

“Thank you,” Hot Rod says, and then sets about finalising the sale and organising the pick-up with the worker. He briefly tells Deadlock over private comm what to expect coming his way, before exiting the shop.

In his peripheral vision, his spoiler wings twitching with long-ingrained battle instincts, he clocks the worker making another comm-call after he steps out. He hides a frown. It could be innocent, unconnected, but – his base survival coding picks it out and brings it to the forefront of his processing insistently. And Hot Rod’s not dumb enough to ignore his honed senses.

He warily makes his way towards the west arm of the station, suddenly certain he’s walking into something potentially dangerous. His internal weapons systems raise themselves up to standby mode, and he doesn’t bother to suspend them this time.

He finds the blacksmith just fine. Zey look like zey were expecting him.

Hot Rod shows zem the holos, haggles a price with zem – better than he was expecting, by which he means about what the parts are actually worth – and remains polite and cheery throughout the conversation. The blacksmith looks like zey don’t know quite what to make of him, but it’s all pretty professional.

And then Hot Rod’s battle instincts have him flinging himself to the side as he walks out of zeir shop, the laser blast just barely missing the top edge of his left spoiler wing.

“Hey now, that wasn’t very nice,” Hot Rod says as the blacksmith levels a standard pistol at him. Outside, the street is conspicuously empty.

The blacksmith’s face twists, all four multi-faceted eyes narrowing, zeir carapace rattling in a show of aggression not unlike how a Cybertronian might rattle their armour plates. “Your kind isn’t very nice,” zey say. “Remember Turuw-3? I do. I lost most of my hive that day to your _war._ I don’t care if you’re a Neutral. I don’t care, even, which side did it. You’re all hideous – ” Here, the blacksmith spits out a word that Hot Rod’s translation programs cannot parse, but by the context and tone, is probably a _Spawn of the Unmaker_ equivalent.

Zeir hand is shaking on zeir blaster.

Hot Rod surveys the situation. He carefully, obviously, powers down his forearm guns, and steps back, out of a fighting stance.

The blacksmith looks torn between fury, fear, grief, and a strange sort of thankfulness. “Fight me!” zey shriek at Hot Rod. “Attack me!”

“No,” Hot Rod says. “I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

The blacksmith’s hand shakes more. Zey’ll never be able to aim the blaster, but zey do try to keep it mostly level with Hot Rod’s centre mass. “Why not?” zey demand. “Have you suddenly grown a conscience only now? You filthy scrap heap!”

“I’m not here to help you play out your revenge fantasy,” Hot Rod says, gently but firmly. The blacksmith makes a wordless buzz, blaster dipping a little. “I’m sorry that you’ve lost your hive. I’m sorry that so many have been hurt and killed by our war. But killing me will not bring them back.” He doesn’t say he’s not guilty. He can’t.

The blacksmith makes a noise. That’s all Hot Rod can describe it as. Zeir species clearly doesn’t have tear-ducts or the ability to cry, but the whining hum they make can only be zeir kind’s equivalent. The blaster clatters to the ground.

“Go,” zey say shakily. “Just – _go.”_

Hot Rod goes.

–

Hot Rod politely ignores the ill-disguised surprise on the faces of those loading up the parts he and Deadlock are selling into their transport, and goes to stand next to his mate.

“How did it go?” Deadlock asks quietly, shifting in place so that their hip plating lightly bumps together and their EM fields mesh at the edges. A tense line visibly fades out of him at having Hot Rod close again.

“Only one slight murder attempt,” Hot Rod mutters back. “We’re good.”

Deadlock stiffens, his field flaring out in anger and worry. Hot Rod clenches onto his hand, tugging lightly, adjusting his own field to emit reassurance. “It’s fine,” he says lowly. “I – let me show you.”

They haven’t tried this part of having a fulfilled spark-mate bond yet. But Hot Rod’s been eager to give it a go. He just wishes it were in better circumstances.

Carefully, he delves into the bond, grasping it with metaphorical fingers. From the look on Deadlock’s face, it probably feels a bit weird, but, hey, Hot Rod’s never done this before, and is following a mix of instinct and written theory read long ago. He widens the bond, and then tries to pack up and send a memory file like he would along a hardline data link, only through his spark.

“Oh,” Deadlock breathes out, before his optics dim slightly with the familiar look of someone processing data files on their internal systems. Hot Rod waits, holding his mate’s hand tightly and watching the parts shop employees load up their transport whilst occasionally casting the two of them wary looks. After a few moments, Deadlock’s optics brighten again, a pensive look crossing his face.

“Did you see?” Hot Rod asks.

“Yeah, I saw,” Deadlock says. “Frag. That’s more that you get on a hardline. I literally lived that memory alongside you, _as_ you.”

“’Least it worked,” Hot Rod says. “And – do you think I could have done more? Was there anything else I could have said?”

“No,” Deadlock replies after a second of thought. “I mean. You were nicer about it than I would have been. But I don’t think there was any way you could have dealt with that more kindly than you already did. Will there be – repercussions, do you think?”

Hot Rod shrugs. “Got a call on my comm from the station peacekeepers on my way back,” he admits. “They asked if I wanted to press charges – you know, in that _please don’t actually do it_ type of way. I declined. I – it’s – I don’t know. Letting something like that go is – it’s best for us right now, and it’s best for zem, ‘cause that was grief fuelling that. But. On a first order level, letting an attempted hate crime go without consequence ain’t good in itself, let alone the wider impact on discrimination against our people everywhere if it gets normalised. It’s – it’s complicated. I don’t know how I feel about it.”

“Zey shouldn’t have done it,” Deadlock says. “I understand why. Primus, I do, ‘cause I’ve done it and _succeeded._ But grief doesn’t excuse murder in a court of the law.”

“It would if it was against a Cybertronian,” Hot Rod mutters lowly.

Deadlock’s engine growls. “How long ‘til these guys are done?” he asks, a little too loud to keep their conversation private.

Hot Rod lets him change the subject, watching as the parts shop employees startle and then try to hurry while also trying not to look like they’re hurrying. “Don’t be mean to the retail minions,” he chides his mate, “they don’t get paid nearly enough to deal with your snarl.”

Deadlock – thankfully – snickers. “Nobody does.”

–

They leave the station as soon as the parts shop’s transport exits their dock. If the blacksmith still wants the parts zey paid for, zey can come pick them up in zeir own time, ‘cause Deadlock and Hot Rod aren’t sticking around. They leave the parts half-way down the dock, far enough away that they won’t get caught in the blast from the thrusters as they ascend.

They get clearance to leave very soon after they call in their request, likely having been bumped up to first priority. At least they’re leaving in one piece.

Renta VII gets small beneath them quickly, the station falling into a shadowed mass with pinpricks of light as the planet’s evening turns to night.

“Where to?” Deadlock asks as he fiddles with the star-maps loaded into the navi-computer. A few are outdated, and he’s plugging in the data-drives liberated from their old ship to update them.

“Far away from here,” Hot Rod says instantly, “don’t care where. Just – far away from the active war zones. Somewhere unattractive for any campaigns.”

That’ll mean fewer resources. Especially ones that could be converted to energon. Not unmanageable, but – “Do you think we could rig up an energon converter out of the solar panels?” Deadlock asks, knowing that Hot Rod has a fair bit of tinkering knowledge from his time in Nyon’s resistance. “That would open up our options a fair bit.”

Hot Rod looks over to where said panels are leaning against one wall thoughtfully. “You know, I think I could,” he says, wandering over and examining them. “This ship came with a few as well, right? I think I can work something out.”

Something inside Deadlock eases. Starvation is not an unfamiliar feeling to him – and not to Hot Rod, either – but the securement of fuel is always high-priority for his systems. They have a small stash left still, but – he’s spent too long not knowing where his next meal was coming from to do it peaceably now. “Good,” he says, shortly, unworried about his mate taking offence. Hot Rod will know what he means.

Deadlock turns back to the star-maps. He crosses out several systems immediately, dragging the map across the screen to get to the less-inhabited reaches of the known galaxies. They’ll want some kind of station or colony close by, and far reaches mean more pirates, but they don’t want Inter-Planetary Peacekeepers on top of them, and they’ll want access to resources, but not too many resources because that could put them into future danger… the list of requirements pile up quickly.

“Primus,” Hot Rod says behind him, “just pick a direction an’ go. It’s not like we’re gonna be settlin’ in one place if we’re gonna pick up mercenary work. Just get us farther away from the hot zones for now. We’ll figure out the rest as it comes.”

Deadlock hears this, internally shrugs, and inputs an out-of-the-way station he knows has a bounty office in it. “There. Done.”

Hot Rod leaves the solar panels and comes to sit in the co-pilot’s chair, pulling up something on his own monitor. “You know,” he says, “this ship still needs a name.” On the screen, Hot Rod inputs the alignment ping to read _Neutral_ , and then selects the empty box that would hold the ship name. “Any suggestions?”

Deadlock looks over to his mate and says, “I’ve never named a ship in my life.”

Hot Rod hums. “Neither have I,” he says. “First time for everything. Got a theme you think’ll be nice?”

Deadlock shifts in place, an answer coming to the tip of his glossa but embarrassment preventing it from being voiced. “… No.”

Hot Rod shoots him a knowing look. “Come on,” he says. “I’m linked spark-to-spark with you. I know you’ve got a soft inside. Let’s have it.”

“… Light,” Deadlock admits. “Something to do with light. I know it’s a bit cliché, but – I’d like it.”

“So, what, like the _Guiding Light,_ or the _Light of the North_ or something like that?” Hot Rod asks, trying to shake his vocabulary centre into producing all the _light_ words it can.

“Primus, no,” Deadlock laughs. “We’d get laughed straight out of the bounty office if we told them our ship was called the _Light of the North._ Maybe something a bit less… literal?”

Hot Rod clicks his glossa, then goes on, mostly teasing. “Hm. _Leading Light? Radiance? Illuminated Grace?”_

“Stop, stop!” Deadlock chokes out, laughing harder. “These are all terrible!”

“Okay, okay,” Hot Rod snickers. He consults his vocabulary centre again, more seriously this time. “How about… the _Luminary?”_ he asks, quiet.

“The _Luminary?”_ Deadlock repeats, trying it out. He’s sure that Hot Rod instantly picks up that he doesn’t actually know what the word means.

Hot Rod, Primus bless him, gives a short definition unprompted. “It’s an old word. I think the Functionists outlawed it from Neo-Cybex. It means someone who inspires or guides others, especially when talking about a particular field of study. And before then we also applied it to astral bodies that gave off light. Think it got outlawed in favour of words like _expert_ and such. Too reliant on the symbolism of light being equated with knowledge for the Functionists to allow it when they started the language cull.”

Deadlock tilts his head, the feeling coming from the bond making him wait for Hot Rod to continue.

Hot Rod hesitates a moment before adding, “Nyon had – a lot of old stuff, in the underlayers. Things that never saw the light of day, they were buried so long ago. Exploring the ruins underneath, buried as we built higher and higher… well, the resistance made it a point to know how to slip away from the enforcers.”

“We have lost,” Deadlock says, angrily, “ _so much_ to the fraggin’ Functionists. They aren’t having _this.”_

He gets up, leans over Hot Rod, and jabs _The Luminary_ into the screen, clicking the accept button. The information gets saved and updated.

Hot Rod places a hand on Deadlock’s forearm, right over the golden spark-mate mark. “Then let’s go,” he says. “Their rule started this war. An’ we’ve all lost so much. They ain’t getting’ any more of me. Any more of you.”

Deadlock bows his head, presses a kiss to Hot Rod’s cheek, and sits back down in his own seat, not bothering to pull his arm away from Hot Rod’s light hold.

He starts up the FTL engines, and between one bend of space-time and the next, the _Luminary_ is gone, the stars blurring into streaks of light around them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not pictured in this chapter: the author quadruple checking the pronoun conjugations, the author agonising over what to call the ship, and the author wondering if they should name the OCs to make it easier but then remembering that doing so might trick readers into thinking they're going to appear again later (spoiler: they aren't) and so making do with using epithets the whole time. 
> 
> And that about wraps up _Elude_. Thank you for reading and I hope you stay tuned to this series :)
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](https://stairre.tumblr.com/). Come and say hello!


End file.
